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Mark 6: 32-45 tells the story of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand men plus women and children.
Jesus and the disciples had been so busy teaching and ministering to people that they hardly had time to eat. They were all weary and needed to get away to rest, but when the people saw them leaving, they were so desperate to know more truth that they followed them. When Jesus saw this, He couldn’t help but have compassion on them because the Bible says that He saw them “as sheep without a shepherd.” They were desperate to find someone who could tell them the truth.

The people had left what they were doing and followed Jesus without even thinking about food or provisions. It was getting late in the day and the disciples started to worry that they wouldn’t make it home because they hadn’t eaten.

Naturally, they tried to think of a fleshly solution to the problem. They told Jesus to let them disperse and go to the villages nearby to get something to eat.

He answered by saying to them, “Give ye them to eat.”

They tried to find their own solution to the problem and came up with only two small fish and five loaves of bread. Naturally, they couldn’t see how that small amount would accomplish anything, but Jesus had something else in mind. He wanted to teach them about the provision of God.

They saw a miracle of huge proportions and saw Jesus take care of an impossible situation. He fed five thousand people by multiplying the small amount of food until everyone was filled. Then the disciples took up twelve baskets that were left over.

What an awesome miracle the disciples had just seen. You would think that it would have made a huge impact on them and their lives would have been radically changed, but that was not to be the case yet.

After the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus went to a mountain to pray while the disciples got in the ship and sailed to the other shore.

Later that night, a huge storm came up with the disciples out in the middle of the sea. They were rowing as hard as they could, but making little progress against the huge waves and mighty winds.

Jesus decided to go to them by walking upon the sea. When they saw Him, they were very afraid until He told them who He was. As soon as He got into the boat, the wind ceased and the water became calm.

The disciples were amazed at what had just happened, but Mark 6: 52 says “For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened.”

A few hours before, they had just seen an awesome miracle, but now they did not remember or think about the “power” which Jesus had shown in feeding the five thousand. They didn’t consider that He could use this same power to save them from the storm, so they didn’t even ask for His help.

They were not opposed to what Jesus had done, but their mind was too dull to perceive the powerful implications of it. They never connected the two things together as being from the same “power source.”

Two chapters later, we find pretty much the same thing happening. The crowd was anxious to be around Jesus and hear what He had to say, so they followed Him again out of town. This time they had been there three days with nothing to eat, having at least four thousand men plus women and children.

Jesus went through the same routine, telling the disciples they needed to provide food for the people.

Again, they only found a small amount of food, but Jesus blessed and multiplied it so the people could eat until they were full. This time they had seven baskets left over. After everyone had been completely filled, he sent them away to their homes.

Right after that, he and the disciples were getting ready to depart when the Pharisees started asking Jesus questions. He wouldn’t answer them because He knew it was a waste of time. They were not looking to understand, but only trying to find a way to trap him.

He finally got away, and they boarded the ship. Keep in mind that this was only a few hours after another miraculous feeding of thousands of people using only a few fish and loaves of bread.

Jesus told them these words in Mark 8:15, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.”

Again, they had no clue what Jesus was talking about. He was trying to warn them that the Pharisees were only concerned with rules and regulations. They didn’t want to lose their power, so they were fighting against the truth that Jesus had been teaching. As the disciples discussed it, they felt that Jesus must have been upset with them because they didn’t bring along any bread to eat because He had talked about leaven.

Jesus then recounted the miraculous feeding of the five thousand men, plus women and children, and how they had twelve baskets left over. He also reminded them of the four thousand men, plus women and children who had been fed with seven baskets left over.

He not only reminded them of His sufficiency, but also of the overage that was left each time. He had done over and above what was required.

Then in Mark 8: 21 He says, “How is it that ye do not understand?”

The disciples had been with Jesus constantly and watched Him do all kinds of miracles. This had become a part of their everyday life. They didn’t seem to understand the power that Jesus had to perform these miracles and where that power came from.

As Christians, we see miracles performed in our lives or the lives of others, but many of us don’t seem to understand either?

Jesus has given every Christian the authority to use the POWER of His Name in order to fight off the advances of the enemy Satan, but you must have a close relationship with Him in order to be able to use that power.

Let the Holy Spirit show you about the Character of God, and let Him open your heart, mind, and ears to find out the truth and walk in it.

You must want to know the truth before you can really understand it. Grasp onto the promises and truths God has given you in His Word and you will find they will completely change your life.

God wants all His Children to be able to walk in His Power and live a victorious Christian life. He not only wants us to defeat Satan, He wants us to make huge advances for the furtherance of the Kingdom of God.

God wants people who are sold out to Him and want to learn about His Character. Then He can use them to do mighty works for the cause of Christ.

Make the choice right now that you will be this kind of person!

I leave you with the words to the chorus of this song by Matthew West:

The Motions

I don’t want to go through the motions

I don’t want to go one more day

Without your all-consuming passion inside of me

I don’t want to spend my whole life asking

What if I had given everything

Instead of going through the motions

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Handbook for Victorious Christian Living – practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

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Have you ever had a feeling you should not do a particular thing even though it looked like it might be an awesome opportunity?

If you are a Christian, the Holy Spirit lives inside you and wants to give you guidance each day. You can never depend on feelings alone to help you make right decisions for your life.

The Holy Spirit can warn you of traps Satan has planted to steer you off course. Like the picture above some things are labeled correctly and boldly, and others are very discreet and often you may not know you have walked into a trap until it is too late.

Sometimes others even try to warn us we are going down the wrong path, but we fail to listen.

Before you start your day, ask the Holy Spirit to make you sensitive to hear His Voice so that you can avoid the pitfalls Satan would try to use to bring you down.

If you have grave doubts about a situation, pray hard about what to do. It may be that you are just supposed to walk away, no matter how good it looks. the Holy Spirit is very good at quickening your spirit to perceive that something is wrong, but you must listen to Him. It must grieve the heart of God because so many of us feel that we shouldn’t do a particular thing, but go ahead and do it anyway and many times have to pay a heavy price.

Don’t open a door that will allow Satan to have any entrance at all into your life.

Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living – Practical way to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

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Check out my other sites:

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living - Practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

The most splendid future will always depend upon the necessity to release the past; You cannot move forward in life unless you learn from your past mistakes and move on.

Anonymous

Psalm 103: 10 -12

He (God) hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions (sins) from us.

I think we all know someone who is stuck in the past. It doesn’t always have to be something bad that keeps them there, even though we mostly think of it that way. Sometimes people have a period of time when everything just seems to go fantastic. They have no major financial problems, things go well with family members, and everything just seems to fall into place all around; then they get stuck, wish they could continue to stay there forever, and can’t seem to move forward even though circumstances may have changed for the worse.

Many parents would like to go back to the time when their children were smaller and living at home. Living in the past has a tendency to make us forget the bad things and remember all the great ones.

We all make mistakes and do things we are not proud of. Some of our mistakes are humongous and may have messed up our life and affected the lives of our family members; then other mistakes are just everyday ones that would be considered small, but still have affected us greatly.

There can also be bad things done to you that you have no control over. As terrible as they might be, you still must confront them and let God minister healing to you. There is no way to move forward as long as you are stuck in the past. Don’t let Satan convince you that you are better off staying where you are because moving forward would be too painful. All he wants is to keep you trapped and living the same pain over and over again. He never has your best interest at heart, where God ALWAYS does.

Satan can use guilt in a mighty way and for a variety of reasons. He is a master at telling you that you are not worthy of forgiveness, and puts ideas into your head that God will never be able to use you again or restore you.

Satan is also the father of all lies, and you must recognize that and tell him to leave you alone in the Name of Jesus, and mean it with all your heart.

Read the Bible and find out the truth. Then when Satan tries to tell you a lie, you can easily recognize it and tell him that he has no authority over you any more.

He may try to drag you down for awhile, but every time you refuse to believe his lies, you are gaining more and more ground towards living a life of victory.

Just as the Bible verses above say, when you ask God to forgive you with a truly repentant heart, the sin is gone from your life right then and He forgets about it. It is covered under the Blood of Jesus and you are now clean.

NEVER again let Satan make you believe you are not worthy of forgiveness, because that is a lie.

When you have been forgiven, do whatever the Holy Spirit tells you as far as making things right with others. You need to truly seek His guidance and follow it. Don’t have too much pride to go to someone and make things right if that is what He tells you to do.

Do whatever you have to do in order to move on with your life. We all make mistakes, but God can cleanse, purify, and restore our heart and life in a miraculous way.

Make sure that you do whatever it takes to walk in God’s peace and joy again.

Check out my other sites:

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living

Power of the Living Word

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Satan has a huge amount of patience. He sits back and waits until you carelessly leave a door open, and He slowly comes inside to do his dirty work. Many times we don’t even realize he is there until he has already done a lot of damage.

There is an old Caribbean song that sums up everything very well: “Shut the door, keep out the devil. Shut the door, keep the devil in the night. Shut the door, keep out the devil. Everything is gonna be alright.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR4jXQ1PDjA&NR=1]

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Many times we don’t realize that it is controlling us until it is almost too late.

Sin Crouches at the Doggie Door
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Victoria_Day]Victoria Day

My husband and I have been watching, for several months now, a little bird who has found a treasure chest of easily available dinners (our dog’s dry food) on the floor in the middle of our kitchen. He found he was able to jump through the doggie door, snatch his prize, and easily make his escape without notice.

In the beginning, the little bird was very much aware that this was the home of two humans and three dogs – dogs that have had many a fine feathered meal, and he would wait until the house was quiet and the danger less. Recently, however, there has been a change. The little bird seems to have grown “accustomed to our faces.” He has been becoming bolder – flying around our house with abandon, landing on counters, hopping on the floor and snatching a morsel right in front of our view. Recently, he has even been bold enough to land on both of us while we slept! One night, I thought a mouse was running across my back! The bird is losing his fear of us and is enjoying his easy meals – but is this wise?

Our dogs, who have thus far tolerated this aviary intrusion, are still his biggest threat. I dread the day when I awake to find nothing left of this bird but a few feathers near the food dish. If the bird continues as he is, it is inevitable. Just as it is the law of nature that the dogs will eventually devour the trusting little bird, it is the law of God that sin will devour us if we allow ourselves to be seduced by it. Sin is a snare that always awaits opportunity.

“If you do well, will not {your countenance} be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Genesis 4:7

Sin crouches at the doggie door. It gives us the false impression that we can taste its fruit without fear and emboldens us to pursue it, even in the presence of the dogs! Sin is the great seducer and the great destroyer.

CHRISTIAN! Are you stealing bites out of the doggie dish? Are you sneaking in through the doggie door to satisfy your appetite for worldly pleasure? Have you succumbed to the lust of the flesh? Has your familiarity with the ways of the world seduced you into living an immoral lifestyle? Has an addiction kept you in bondage? Do you find it easy to lie, gossip, steal and justify these things?

Like the bird, we begin with caution, but as we continue to eat stolen morsels of worldly pleasures and participate in the sins of the world even under the watchful eyes of the dogs, our boldness increases. We fly freely in territory that poses a great threat to our spiritual well being. We ignore the consequences of our disobedience and care little for upholding our testimony before men. The world, covered in darkness, desperately seeks to find Christ in us.

Because it seems like we are temporarily getting away with our sin, we feel safe. But just as the bird began to feel confident that he could enter the house of his enemies and partake of their food without harm, sin can seduce us into a false sense of security. If we become too comfortable with it and eat the food of dogs, we will inevitably find ourselves the food of devils and pay the consequences for our own disobedience and lack of control.

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

Victoria Day is an accomplished artist and writer residing in Southern Arizona.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Victoria_Day http://EzineArticles.com/?Sin-Crouches-at-the-Doggie-Door&id=1304874

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Satan anxiously awaits those times. He knows that you are vulnerable if you do not have on the full armor of God for protection.

Ephesians 5: 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Ephesians 5: 14 – 18 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

The Pit Bull in the picture below obviously thought that since he was much bigger he would have no trouble going up against a porcupine, who was much smaller. He got a huge surprise, though.

A vet had to sedate the dog to remove a total of 1,347 quills, but he survived. I’ll bet he won’t go near a porcupine again.

Will we as Christians learn the importance of never being without our armor securely in place? You might think you are bigger than that small sin, but it can surely come back to bite you in the long run. Satan is very patient and bides his time, waiting for that perfect opening. When it comes, he pounces and sometimes we don’t even know what hit us.

Determine each day that you will proudly put on your armor. Let God help you win the battles of your life. There is nothing that He doesn’t care about that concerns you. Don’t try to overcome sin in the flesh just because it seems small and insignificant.

Like the dog realized, just because you are bigger doesn’t mean you will always win. Don’t let Satan hinder you from doing God’s work by sticking you all over with quills so that you can’t see and think straight.

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